Daughter of Darkness
by I'm bad at making usernames
Summary: When Layla Booth is kidnapped by giants her life is flipped upside down. Thrust into this new world of gods and monsters, she is hopelessly confused. Somewhere along the way she ended up on a quest to save the world, with people doing amazing things all around her she is left to figure out how she fits into all of this.
1. That Time I Was Kidnapped By Giants

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Heroes of Olympus, all I own is Layla and the plot. I apologize for any OOC actions of the characters as this is my first fic. Reviews are welcomed and if you see any errors please point them out! I hope you enjoy this!**

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I, Layla Booth, had just been kidnapped by two identical twelve feet men, the only difference between them being that one had green hair and the other had purple. I wish I could say this was the weirdest thing that had happened to me this week, but…

I don't even know how it happened. One second I was minding my own business, the next two giants were grabbing me and shoving me into a sack. None too gently, might I add. I'm going to hurt for weeks after. The only thing to keep me from going mad in the bag was the weirdo's conversation.

"Why are we doing this again?" One asked, his voice taking a higher pitch halfway through the sentence- almost as if he was afraid.

"Because Mother believes that we can use the girl to gain support from her mother." The other sighed in response as if he had answered this question a million times before.

My mother? Did they know my mom? How could they know her, _I_ didn't even know who she was.

"Ohhh." The first said in apprehension.

"Just grab the girl, Ephialtes." The second brother commanded.

A moment after he commanded his brother my temporary prison opened and revealed the purple haired kidnapper, now identified as Ephialtes. His hair was braided with silver and gold coins and his eyes were snake-like. The only thing more intimidating than his appearance was the giant spear strapped across his back. Wow. These people really were crazy.

After being retrieved from the bag, I was promptly shoved into a cell with nothing but what looked like every TV show's depiction of a holding cell. Lovely. With one final glance around my prison, I went to sleep.

~0~

I didn't know where I was but the smell was enough to tell me it was unpleasant. It was as if every egg on the planet had suddenly rotted. Everything was tinted red and there were humanoid things flying in the clouds that looked like evaporated blood.

I was so terrified out of my mind that I barely registered the two twenty-foot men who walked into my field of vision. One very muscular, with glowing skin the colour of a tuba. He was wearing shining gold armor and had a wicked long sword that looked like it could decapitate a whale. The other had a blue-white beard and hair, eyes like glaciers. His armor, where his companions' was simple, his was intricate and elaborate, where his friends' sword was like a beacon of scorching heat, his looked like it could freeze fire, where his companion's armor was golden and magnificent, his was pitch black.

As the men walked towards me speaking quietly to each other they didn't even notice me, their eyes looking straight through me. As they neared I tried to run in the opposite direction, their appearances thoroughly scaring me out of my mind. I soon discovered that I couldn't move. Fun.

"Was the boy captured?" The golden man inquired

"The twins have him now, they're using him to lure out the pesky demigods." The cold man stated completely disinterested. What twins? The ones that kidnapped me?

"And what of the girl? Her power could be useful." The golden man looked around, almost as if he could sense my presence.

"The twins found her this morning, she's in their custody as well."

~0~

I suddenly gasped awake, my face dripping wet.

"Time to get up, girl." The green haired twin ordered harshly. His brother standing just behind holding a boy around a year younger than me over his shoulder.

"Where am I? Who are you? __What__ are you? Why did you kidnap me?" I demanded, my voice shaking.

All this seemed to do was make the purple haired man laugh "Now aren't you presumptuous? Why should we tell you anything?"

I struggled to find an answer "Because... Well because it's common courtesy!"

"Common courtesy?" Otis raised an eyebrow.

"Yes! You've kidnapped me, it seems the least you could do to answer my questions!" I shrieked indignation, my previous fear melting into righteous anger.

"Alright, but only because you amuse me so much. I am Ephialtes, this is my brother Otis. We're giants, immortal beings predating any civilization. As for why we kidnapped you, our mother thinks that you will be a useful bargaining chip for allies. I wanted to just kill you, perhaps experiment with how entertaining death by explosion is but _no_ _o_." Ephialtes whined

"Giants? As in greek mythology?" My head was spinning, what the hell was going on?

"You've heard of us!" Otis added in "That's good!"

I was suddenly reminded of my dream the men walking in that pit... I searched my mind for any mythology I knew and only two people fit the image of the men I saw, the titans Hyperion and Koios. If they were real then they were defeated and imprisoned in Tartarus. Was that the pit I dreamed of? How was any of this possible?

"How are you real?" I was getting nauseous

"Well, when a mommy primordial and a daddy primordial love each other very much..."

I quickly cut Otis off, knowing where __that__ was heading "I know that! I mean you're supposed to be myths! As in not real!"

"If you say so." The giants chuckled one last time before exiting.

~0~

My life had flipped upside down in an instant. Suddenly myths were real and kidnapping people to get their absent parents help. Help with what, I couldn't stop myself from wondering. Ephialtes said that their mother ordered me to be taken, and if I remembered correctly their mother was Gaea, who was literally the earth. If she wanted allies than she was at war and I shuddered to think what would happen to people if the dirt went to war.

As I got more and more distressed the darkness seemed to respond, creeping closer and closer towards me until it enveloped my body. As the shadows washed over me I could feel all my hurts fading away, every scratch and bruise I received from the twins fading away until I felt good as new. But most of all I felt the power. Power like I had never felt before, it encompassed my being running all through my body. It was as if I had become a super battery. And I liked it.

What. The. Hell

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 **Please review and thank you for reading!**


	2. I Meet My Mother (Sort Of)

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Heroes of Olympus, all I own is Layla and the plot. I apologize for any OOC actions of the characters as this is my first fic. Reviews are welcomed and if you see any errors please point them out! I hope you enjoy this!**

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That day passed uneventfully, The giants had yet to give me food, even after the sun went down. I tried to control the shadows once more but unfortunately, nothing happened. But I noticed after there was no light left in the room it in no way impaired my sight. That was new.

All of a sudden, I was able to do these weird things. What was happening to me? Was this all just a very realistic hallucination?

"Maybe I had just hit my head and was knocked out and this is all just a dream," I thought out loud.

 _Layla..._

A woman's voice sounded in my head, startling me out of my thoughts. It was familiar, from a distant memory of a dream.

 _Layla..._

There it was again. What was going on? Was I going crazy after just one day?

"Hello? Is someone there?"

 _Try to summon the animals to you. If you call they will listen._

"What who are you? How do I do that?" I was dumbfounded. There was someone talking to me in my head. Trippy.

 _I think you know that._

"Are you my mother?" I couldn't help but ask quietly

 _I am._

"Who are you?"

 _I cannot reveal myself to you yet, lest I place you in more danger. But I can teach you to defend yourself._

"Okay. So how do I do that?"

 _Like I said to summon the animals of the night to you. They will listen to you beckoning them._

My mother sounded quite exasperated. Can voices in your head even be exasperated?

"Uhh... Okay?" I sucked in a breath, trying to find all the power I felt while healing myself "Animals of the night come to me?" I said awkwardly, failing my task entirely.

 _Do not think feel. Feel the owls and the bats flying, the mice scurrying._

As my mother spoke I reached out, doing what she said and felt. I could sense their presence if I strained myself. There were bats in the rafters outside my cell, owls above me hunting mice. Was I below ground?

 _Now call to one of them._

I did as she told me. I tugged on the presence of the animals and made myself known to them. I could feel them stop and listen and I called. In my mind, I could feel their thoughts and I chose an owl to call. Come to me, my power called the owl and come it did. I felt it take off and fly towards me.

 _ _Good. Now you wait.__

~0~

I waited and waited, and after forty-five minutes I felt the owl approach me. It perched itself outside my cell and just stared at me. It was a beautiful creature, it had feathers on its head like eyebrows and horns. It was a beautiful mixture of light brown and white feathers outlined by black on the edge of each feather, and piercing yellow eyes.

" _Hello_." The bird hooted.

Did I just understand a bird? That was a new one.

"Hi?" I rose my eyebrows "I'm Layla, what's your name?" I'm talking to a bird, what is happening to my life?

" _I am Althea._ " The owl chirped.

"So... Are you a girl?" I asked awkwardly.

" _Yes. Are you?_ " She tilted her head to the side. It was kind of adorable.

"Yeah..." Great now I was having awkward silences with an _owl_. How much lower could I get?

~0~

Althea helped me practise calling her with my powers before she left so that I could contact her again. I quite like that bird. After she left went to sleep and my dreams weren't any better than the night before.

This time, I was on a glacier, there were what looked like ghosts wearing roman armor and a teenage boy maybe a year or two older than me. The boy was fighting the spirits, creating a miniature hurricane of water and ice, knocking them down and deflecting weapons. He seemed to be moving towards a ghost with a lion-skin cape that was holding a pole with a gold eagle on top. He finally made it to the lion-skin cape guy and defeated him, he grabbed the pole and yelled at the ghosts.

"You want it back? Come and get it!"

His face was beaded with sweat and I knew he wouldn't last too much longer. Every time he struck down an enemy it just got right back up and attacked again, he was backed up until he was just twenty feet from the edge of the glacier.

"Percy!" A voice yelled from beyond her field of vision. "They can die now!" Percy. That must be the boy's name. With that, Percy kept attacking, but his strikes became slower, his hurricane failing. A cry of pain sounded and Percy held the eagle aloft.

"Go help her! I've got these guys!" With that, he kept fighting. The battle seemed to rage forever until Percy's hurricane was completely gone and the spirits were raising their weapons to attack again.

"Percy!" The voice yelled again. Percy glanced right through me at his friend and seemed to figure out what he needed to do.

"Go!" Percy shouted as he slammed his sword into the glacier, a shudder passed through the entire glacier, spirits fell to their knees and a giant grey wave rose up from the water behind Percy. Water shot through crevices and chasms in the ice. As the wave hit the entire edge broke off, sending Percy and the ghosts into the ocean below.

~0~

I woke with a yell dying on my lips. I had just watched someone die. With a shaky breath, I pulled myself off the mattress and quickly brushed myself off. I had unfortunately been unable to do anything involving personal hygiene, as apparently giants didn't put too much stock in being clean. They had at least given me a small mirror so I could look a little presentable. My black hair was in a matted, mess of a braid, my dark eyes bloodshot and my glasses slightly cracked and the lenses had dirt, fingerprints and smudges all over them. My clothes were a rumpled mess, my jeans were so dirty that their nice plumb colour was so dirty it resembled, well, dirt.

I was a complete mess.

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 **Please review and thank you for reading!**


	3. Practice, Practice, And More Practice

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Heroes of Olympus, all I own is Layla and the plot. I apologize for any OOC actions of the characters as this is my first fic. Reviews are welcomed and if you see any errors please point them out! I hope you enjoy this!**

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I have been in this stupid cell for three days and in the entirety of my stay, I had yet to be given food. I had access to water, thankfully, through the tap. The hunger, fortunately, gave me something to focus on other than the death I had just witnessed. My stomach burned, I considered just calling Althea to me and getting her to bring me food. But considering she was an owl her idea of food was probably a dead mouse. Or something to that effect.

In an attempt to ignore the burning in my stomach, I reached out to try to catch the shadows. I could feel them, like a flickering candle in my peripheral vision. Like that sweet smell, you couldn't tell which room it was coming from. Every time I tried to reach out the shadows would recede, leaving frustrated. Every failed attempt left me more and more infuriated.

At the point where the slightest thing would set me off, it wasn't the twins' random bursts of sound that set me off. But the lack of sound. I had been kidnapped, taken from my backyard. I missed my grandparents, I missed my cat. I missed my friends and I missed my bed. I missed being able to hold a conversation with somebody. Most of all I just wanted my Oma to gather me in her arms and hold me tight. With all the anger and sadness and fear and hunger boiled over. With that, I felt a pool of pure energy washing over and through me. I felt the same encompassment and the feeling of rightness. I could feel the shadows swallowing the room and destroying all traces of life. But mostly I could feel the sensation of safety and sanctuary.

After I calmed down and the shadows retreated I faintly noticed a presence behind me.

"You have begun to feel your power." A woman's voice observed.

The woman herself was unremarkable, with hair the color of soil and a green dress. The odd thing about her was her eyes. Throughout the whole time I had been staring at her, her eyes remained closed and her smile did not waver.

"Who are you?" I asked incredulously. I was phased by the sheer creepy of her smile. It looked like she could watch entire cities be blown up and still have that expression.

"I am Gaea. The earth mother." She looked nothing like any depiction on Mother Earth that I've ever seen.

"If you're actually her, which you probably are, what do you want with me? Why did you have your sons kidnap me?" It occurred to me that I should most likely be more respectful to the literal earth, but that wasn't my main priority at the moment.

"Because your mother is powerful deity and I would like her support in the upcoming war. She would not help me but with this... incentive she will." And with that Gaea dissolved into the ground, leaving no trace she was there behind.

Are all immortal beings such drama queens?

~0~

I've been here for five days with nothing to do but attempt to detangle my hair with my fingers then re-braid it and practice. Now six days without food I was getting desperate for a distraction. My stomach was constantly on fire and water did nothing but quell it to a dull burning. I haven't had contact with anyone except Althea and Gaea, it's getting worrying, what if Ephialtes and Otis forgot about me? What if I never get out?

No. I can't think that way if I'm going to get out of this. I just need to become more adept at using my powers on the offense and to do that I'd need Althea's help. Each time I called for Althea the easier it got, it was like memorizing a phone number- each time you called you remembered it a little better than before.

Before I realized it Althea was there before me.

"Althea would you mind getting me something I could attack." I couldn't quite think of what to use though "Maybe a small stuffed animal? Or a piece of bark from a tree?"

" _What about a mouse? Those are fun to attack._ " The owl tilted her head to the side.

"How about just a stuffed animal for now, 'kay?" I didn't especially want to kill anything unless I absolutely had to. But I would presumably have to at one point or another in this weird world where monsters are real I would have to.

Althea seemed to think my decision odd, but complied, returning a few minutes later with a few stuffed penguins.

I set the toys up around my cell in different places. Choosing one to try first I reached out to the darkness. After a few moments, I felt the telltale rush of energy flowing through me signaling I had them. I gathered everything I could feel and visualized it encasing the plushie.

After a few minutes of trying and trying with nothing happening, I got so mad that all I could think about was the stupid penguin exploding. So I visualized a ball of darkness growing and growing inside the penguins belly so fast that the plushie couldn't do anything other than explode. And low and behold it did.

With cotton stuffing raining down on my head I came to the sudden conclusion, my powers only worked when I was angry or frustrated. If- No- When I bust myself out of here all I've got to do is get angry. Should be easy enough, I was plenty angry. Okay, I can do this.

Facing another toy, I closed my eyes and thought about every single thing that had happened to me in the past few days. First, I was kidnapped by fucking giants, then I was locked in a stupid cell with nothing but a stupid uncomfortable bed, a toilet, and a sink. I have been given no food, nothing to sustain myself but water. Without even having to put much effort into it I opened my eyes and saw the toy being compacted in a glove of darkness, looking ready to burst on both ends.

I dropped my hold on the penguin and let out a happy cry. I had done it!

"I've got this, I'll be able to break myself out of here in no time," I said in momentary arrogance. I just needed to keep practicing and I'd be ready.

~0~

It was day eight and I was doing nothing but feeling the shadows, contorting them into different shapes to play out different things. Like scenes from Doctor Who and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. While I was contorting the shadows to reenact a scene where Buffy bends a werewolf hunter's gun into a circle an idea sprang to mind on how I would get out of this cell. I could use the shadows to contort the bars so that the space between them was large enough for me to slip out of.

I had my plan, now I just had to execute it.

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 **Please review and thank you for reading!**


	4. Authors Note PLEASE READ

**Hey guys I am so sorry for not updating recently but I broke my computer and I won't be able to update any time soon! I am so sorry!**


	5. Chapter 5

Sorry, this isn't an update. I know that it's been a really long time since I've updated and I hate to say that it will be a while before I update again. I've been dealing with some pretty severe health issues for the past few years and they have made it difficult to write consistently. Thankfully though, I've been getting better, however with recovery means doing stuff other than writing. And, for me, that was entering into a very intensive regiment of a high school with very high expectations, three hours of sports per day, and doctors appointments.

With it being summer now I'll try to find the time to update, however, I still have multiple doctors appointments a week to try to work around. Thank you to everyone who has stuck it through waiting for an update. And thank you to everyone who continues to follow and favourite that gives me more motivation to write than you can ever know.


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